Well, when I made the announcement that I was going to resume the roll-out of our list of last year’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs — five months after the last installment in the series — I did warn you that I probably wouldn’t be posting a new installment every day. But I didn’t think I’d let three weeks go by after the last installment. Sorry about that.

Anyway, here are two more songs for the list, and I have two more in mind for tomorrow — and if perchance you don’t know what this list is about, you can find an explanation here.

VOLTURYON

Volturyon’s vicious little five-track gem of an EP, Human Demolition, was a particular favorite of my comrade DGR (reviewed here). Thanks to him, I finally listened to all of it a couple of weeks ago, and yeah, I’m sold. There are really no weak spots on the EP, but one song in particular stands out as the most infectious, and that one is the next addition to this list. I’ll borrow from DGR’s review:

Every song on this EP feels written to cause instant headbanging. Prior to this review, I had been sending our lovely editor messages about how Human Demolition felt like a hammer dropping after its intro, and then twelve minutes of non-stop headbanging would commence. Thing is though, I wasn’t fucking around. Once that first note hits in “Concrete Devotion”, don’t expect to have clear vision for the next fifteen minutes — it’s like being jolted forward by electricity.

“Concrete Devotion” on its own is making a serious play for our Most Infectious list this year. It’s just a relentless, groove-heavy, steamroller of a track that sounds like it was Frankensteined together out of the pool of influences to which Bloodbath paid tribute. The song is Swedish Death Metal distilled. Probably a bit too well-produced for those who like their metal with a thick layer of murk on the top, but the song is a piston-driven track. It’s precise and surgical in its heaviness, and Alexander Högbom’sroars give the track extra firepower, especially when they just devolve into animalistic grunting and screeching with blasts behind it all.

It really is a hell of a song. Enjoy (and prepare for a new Volturyon album — they’re recording it now):

Andy Synnreviewed the latest Hour of Penance album, Regicide, summing it up like this:

Their sixth album packs in the same wealth of punishing riffage, bloody hooks, and concentrated venom that’s been their stock in trade for years now, rejecting any pressure to change or develop beyond their obsession with sheer sonic evisceration….

Infamous for their massive sound and unapologetic fascination with bigger-faster-louder, it’s actually the small changes that have the biggest impact here, and those small changes, those little adaptations and adjustments, may just be responsible for the band’s finest hour.

Multiple tracks from Regicide were urged by readers and by Andy for this “most infectious” list. I re-listened to all of those today, and it’s a tough call — but I’m going with “Redeemer of Atrocity”. The machine-gun drum attack that opens the song puts a stupid smile on my face every time I hear it, and the hammering riffs in the track are a ticket straight to headbang city.